Fear.
It crept into Alex's chest like ice, coiling around his ribs, tightening with every second he stared at the glowing interface before him.
His fingers twitched. His breath felt too shallow, his thoughts spiraling.
'Maximus? Augustus?'
The names sounded foreign on his tongue, heavy with history—Roman, weren't they? But why? And these stats—what was this? A game? A hallucination?
His pulse hammered as his feet moved on instinct, skidding toward the nearest wall. His hands fumbled over the surface, desperate to find something—anything—familiar. A switch, a lamp, a window. Something real. Something that made sense.
His fingers brushed against a small switch. He flicked it.
Click.
Harsh yellow light flooded the room, forcing his eyes to adjust. He blinked rapidly, taking in his surroundings for the first time.
The space was… simple.
One large room, sparsely furnished. The kind of place that felt neither welcoming nor lived in—functional, but devoid of warmth.
A bed, neatly made with white sheets, sat against one wall. In the corner, a metal desk stood beside a small bookshelf. A kitchenette occupied the far side of the room, its appliances minimal. A few dressers lined the opposite wall, and next to them—
A closet.
His gaze flickered across the walls, finally catching on the posters scattered haphazardly across them. He barely processed the images, his mind too preoccupied, too wired.
Alex's hands trembled as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was sleek, slightly different from what he was used to, but close enough that his fingers instinctively knew where to go. He tapped the contact labeled Mom and pressed call.
A dial tone.
Then, almost immediately, the call was answered.
"Hey, Max! It's quite early to be calling on a weekend. Did my package arrive?"
Alex froze.
That wasn't Lauren.
The voice was unfamiliar—warm, motherly even, but not the one he had expected.
His grip on the phone tightened. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Who the hell was this woman?
His mouth felt dry. His thoughts scrambled for a response, but the words wouldn't come.
He hung up.
The call ended with a sharp beep.
Alex stared at the screen, his reflection faintly visible on the blackened display. The green eyes that weren't his. The unfamiliar face that now belonged to him.
His stomach twisted.
His breathing still felt too fast.
He needed a mirror.
Alex turned sharply, his body moving before he could think, speed-walking toward the only other door in the room. The bathroom.
Alex flung the door open, his breath coming in shallow gasps as he stepped inside the bathroom. His hands trembled as he gripped the sink's edges, forcing himself to look up at the mirror.
A stranger stared back at him.
The face wasn't his.
His old self—dark hair, dark eyes, sharp but unremarkable features—was gone. Instead, the reflection showed someone else entirely.
Chocolate-brown hair, slightly tousled. Green eyes, vibrant like a dense forest under the sun. His facial features were sharper, more defined, unfamiliar yet unsettlingly natural. He ran his fingers across his jaw, feeling the smooth skin, tracing the contours of a face that didn't belong to him.
His throat tightened.
"Who… am I?" The words barely escaped his lips, a whisper drowned by the rush of blood in his ears.
His hands moved down, running over his arms, his torso. He wasn't out of shape, but he wasn't particularly strong either. Average height. Average build. Nothing remarkable.
Panic settled in.
It clawed up his throat, his heart pounding erratically against his ribs.
His breathing grew ragged as he stumbled back into the room, his mind screaming for answers. He needed to know.
He tore the room apart, pulling open drawers, yanking clothes from the closet, overturning whatever he could get his hands on. Items scattered across the floor—shirts, pants, notebooks, trinkets. Nothing told him who he was.
His eyes darted to the metal desk.
A single card sat on its surface.
His fingers barely brushed it before—
Pain.
A searing, mind-numbing agony ripped through him.
His entire body locked up as if something was tearing him apart from the inside out. It felt like fire in his veins, like invisible hands crushing his skull. He collapsed to the floor, unable to even scream. The world blurred, his vision tunneling as white-hot pain drowned out everything.
Seconds stretched into minutes.
And then, as suddenly as it came, the pain vanished.
Gasping, Alex forced himself onto his hands and knees, sweat dripping onto the floor beneath him. His muscles ached, his limbs felt weak, but he pushed himself upright, his hands gripping the desk for support.
His gaze landed back on the card.
This time, text filled his vision.
User ID: Maximus Augustus
Program: Nexus Hero Program Year 1
School Rank: 2789/3150
Potential: D- Rank
Profession: Assassin / Swordsman
Nexus…
Maximus stared at the walls, his eyes scanning the posters again, as if hoping—desperately—that he had misread the names.
But there they were.
Frederick McCaffery. Emily Talbott. Ryohei Ribayashi.
Titans. The strongest of the strong. Names that echoed across battlefields and legends. Heroes he had read about over and over, their victories, their struggles, their inevitable fates.
A chill crawled up his spine.
His knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor, gripping the metal desk for support as he slid down. His head fell against his knees, arms wrapping around himself as if he could squeeze out the gnawing dread spreading through his chest.
He didn't want to be here.
This world was not a good one. It was cruel, ruthless. A place where monsters, demons, and humans alike slaughtered without hesitation. A place where artifacts with the power to level cities were fought over.
A place filled with death.
Lauren and Nick were the best people he had ever met. Kind, warm, real. They had given him a home. A real home. He had barely started to believe in it, barely allowed himself to think that maybe—just maybe—he had finally found somewhere to belong.
And now it was gone.
Ripped away from him the moment he let himself hope.
His hands clenched into fists, nails digging into his palms. His breathing was shallow, unsteady. He tried to think, to ground himself, but the weight of it all threatened to crush him.
He had read this story before.
He knew what kind of world he was in.
And he knew exactly how easily someone like him could die in it.
Ding dong.
Max flinched.
His mind was still heavy, still reeling from the cruel shift of reality, but the sound grounded him. He forced himself up, muscles stiff, and walked toward the door.
Opening it, he was met with an empty hallway. No footsteps, no fading presence—just a single cardboard package sitting on the ground.
His eyes flicked to the corridor. Identical doors lined both sides, stretching into the distance. It was eerily silent, sterile, like something out of a military dormitory.
He grabbed the package, shut the door, and carried it inside.
Sitting on the floor, Max ripped the tape off, peeling back the flaps. Inside, neatly packed, were clothes, toiletries, and a couple of books stacked on top of each other.
Resting on top of it all was a folded note.
Unfolding it, his eyes traced the familiar yet foreign handwriting.
"Congrats on making it into Nexus, Max! We are all proud of you! Stay safe!"
At the bottom, three signatures:
Mom. Dad. Octavia.
Max stared at the words, his grip tightening around the paper.
'Mom. Dad.'
A hollow feeling settled in his chest.
He put the note aside and started pulling out the clothes—hoodies, t-shirts, pants. All neutral colors. Functional. Nothing flashy.
Then came the books.
The standard Nexus curriculum—thick, dense manuals, covering combat theory, mana manipulation, tactics, survival techniques. The kind of stuff every student needed to know.
But at the very bottom of the stack, something stood out.
A book with no title. No cover. Just plain black.
His fingers brushed against the material, feeling the rough texture of its spine. Carefully, he opened it.
The moment he did, the words on the pages shifted.
Letters scattered, rearranging themselves as if they were alive, before finally settling into coherent text.
Max's pulse quickened as he read.
It wasn't about him.
It was about the protagonist of the novel.
Collin Du Plessis.
Max skimmed through, his breathing shallow.
The story was unfolding exactly as he remembered it—Collin settling into his room, then heading to test out the training facilities.
His eyes darted to the metal desk. He searched the surface until his hand landed on a pencil.
With hesitant fingers, he erased the sentence.
The moment he lifted the eraser, the words blurred, shifting again.
Collin Du Plessis would now go to the training facilities first, then return to his room.
Max's grip on the book tightened.
His heart pounded as realization sank in.
He could change the story.
But should he?
What kind of butterfly effect would even the smallest alteration cause? Had something already changed just by him being here?
His fingers trembled over the paper.
Slowly, carefully, he erased the words again, rewriting them exactly as they had been before.
The text scrambled once more, settling back into its original sequence.
Max exhaled, tension draining from his shoulders.
He couldn't afford to mess with it.
Who knew how fragile this world's balance was?
Who knew what would happen if he altered the course of a story already set in motion?
Max exhaled, forcing himself to push past the storm of emotions raging in his head. He couldn't sit here and drown in his thoughts—not in a world like this. He needed information. He needed a plan.
His eyes swept over the room, searching for anything useful. His gaze landed on the desk. He rummaged through the drawers until he found what he was looking for—a plain, spiral-bound notebook. Empty. Unmarked.
Perfect.
Grabbing a pen, he sat down at the desk, flipping open to the first page.
He hesitated for only a second before pressing the pen to the paper.
Everything I know about the novel.
The words came quickly after that, spilling out in hurried strokes, page after page filling up with everything he could remember.
He kept writing, details flowing in a controlled frenzy. Every arc, every major event, every critical character. The betrayals, the alliances, the moments that shaped the story.
The more he wrote, the more he remembered. His mind sharpened, pieces clicking together.
By the time he finished, hours had passed. His hand ached, and his back was stiff.